Field
This invention relates generally to the field of cleaning attachments for floor cleaning devices and more particularly to a floor cleaning apparatus (and still more particularly to a vacuum cleaning apparatus) that is able to clean upwardly.
Description of the Related Art
Vacuum cleaners and other floor cleaning appliances including push brooms and similar devices are adapted for cleaning the floor surface which may include carpeting, wood or composite substrates. In most homes and businesses, furniture such as sofas, couches and lounging chairs as well as straight back chairs or other wooden furniture having support cross pieces or rungs are present on the floor and toe-kicks or other indentations at the floor level are present in cabinetry or built-in wall units of various forms. Cob webs, dust and other detritus, commonly referred to as “dust bunnies”, may be adhered to the undersurface of such furniture and fixtures. Floor cleaning appliances typically do not provide a means for cleaning the underside of furniture or fixtures to properly extricate the dust bunnies. Such cleaning usually requires additional cleaning elements or hand cleaning effort.
There is a significant problem with present floor cleaning apparatuses, such as brooms, vacuum cleaners, and the like. They are extremely limited in their cleaning capacity and are not configured for significant effective upward and radial cleaning.
A plethora of applications for canister type vacuum cleaners with wand head attachments disclose upward facing brush elements; U.S. Pat. No. 2,975,456 has upward facing bristles, U.S. Pat. No. 3,380,103 has upward facing bristles, U.S. Pat. No. 5,060,342 has extremely small upward facing bristles, U.S. Pat. No. D312,904 has upward facing bristles. U.S. Pat. No. 7,636,979 and US20040016072 even show mops that have a movable or rotatable set of bristles that can be engaged with the floor.
However, these are not bristles configured for upward and radial cleaning; these are bristles configured for downward cleaning on wand heads that are rotatable about a downward facing suction element. Thus the bristles face upwards when the wand head is used on carpet type floors. The head is then rotated about the suction element and the said bristles are used downwardly for cleaning hard and flat floors. They are thus often characterized as being small, tough bristles, and are of little or no use for upward and radial cleaning, and may in fact add dirt to any surface they touch as they have previously contacted a floor. If a surface is engaged by the bristles accidentally, such is the hardness of the bristles, they may block access to an area for the wand head, failing to flexibly bend on impact. Thus they cannot be used for upward and radial cleaning, which requires a cleaning element that is dramatically flexible and does not engage the floor at all, so that floor dirt is not dispersed onto upward and radial surfaces, which is unhygienic and may dirty surfaces, rather than clean them. It is extremely undesirable for an upward and radial cleaning element for a floor cleaning apparatus to at any point be in contact with the floor. As will be shown, specialized adaptation is required for upward and radial cleaning elements.
Furthermore, such rotatable bristle heads tend to not have radial cleaning portions since this is not required for downward cleaning, which is what, in fact, they are configured for. Patent DE 10241492A1 discloses a sideways skirting brush. However, it has no upward or radial function—it is not fit for purpose for the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,382,525 has ‘flayed’ upward facing bristles (which again are configured for downward facing cleaning of a floor), and are best seen in FIG. 3 of the noted application, where it can clearly be seen that the bristles, (which are again rotatable), flay outwardly at their lateral ends. However, as will be shown, flayed brush elements are ineffective for the present purpose of radial cleaning—a cleaning element that extends radially, not in a flayed manner, is required to radially engage a surface in order to effectively and targetedly clean it; specialized adaptations are required. The intent of invention U.S. Pat. No. 3,382,525 is shown in Paragraph 1, where the invention is defined as relating to a ‘dual purpose tool which is useful for cleaning both floors (hardwood, tile, linoleum) and rugs and carpets.’ Thus it can be seen again that the upward facing bristles are configured for downward facing cleaning. It is thus clear why such applications lack the significant adaptations required for upward and radial cleaning, whilst simultaneously downward cleaning a surface of a floor with a downward facing cleaning element. They are not designed for such a purpose.
US20110000039 discloses an invention which has brush parts circumnavigating the head of the apparatus. However, there is no distinct upward and radial cleaning element. This is extremely unhygienic. It would not be hygienic for a brush element that has been used to clean a floor, or a base of a basin, for example, to contact a surface that might be touched by a human hand, or that should be left pristine. Thus it is preferable that an upward and radial cleaning element is separately distinct from the downward facing cleaning element that cleans a floor. Furthermore, the brush element of US20110000039 does not significantly extend. Clearly an upward and radial cleaning element must extend significantly. Furthermore, the cleaning element is not fan-shaped so as to contact and engage as many surfaces as possible.
Effective upward and radial cleaning requires specialized adaptation, and a cleaning element that is configured specifically for the said use. Furthermore, all the inventions as mentioned have a further problem. They do not have a specialized and distinct upward and radial cleaning element that is removably attachable. Upward and radial cleaning elements may get damaged, and certainly dirty. Upward and radial cleaning may provoke engaging of the cleaning element with pristine surfaces. Thus it would be desirable if a damaged or dirty cleaning element could be removed, and a new, pristine cleaning element attached. Furthermore, none of the prior art defines an upward and radial floor cleaning apparatus whereby the cleaning element is incorporated onto a removably attachable utility tool, which can then be removed from the apparatus and used independently by a user as a separate handheld cleaning tool, so that the apparatus is configured to clean a still greater amount of surfaces.
Thus it can be seen that present floor cleaning apparatuses are extremely limited in their cleaning capacity, and that specialized adaptation is required to evolve a floor cleaning apparatus into an effective multi-purpose cleaner that may also clean upward, and radially.
Meanwhile, a huge amount of dust and dirt remains uncleaned and present in a vast majority of worldwide households, including dirt on skirting boards, cobwebs under sofas and in other areas, and dirt and grime accumulating in areas such as toe kicks. Chair struts and the like are left unengaged and thus uncleaned as wand head and vacuum cleaners clean adjacently to them, and underneath them. Cleanable surfaces are often left to gather dust. Many of these surfaces could be cleaned simultaneously to a user cleaning the ground with the downward facing cleaning element of a floor cleaning apparatus, in a same movement, with little or no added effort, if the apparatus had specialized adaptation for such a use. Furthermore, back injuries caused by bending down to clean such underlying surfaces, and discomfort caused by such acts, would be greatly minimized, or a thing of the past.
It is therefore desirable to provide a device which cleans the underside of furniture and fixtures concurrently with normal floor cleaning without requiring separate cleaning effort. It is also desirable that such a device be adaptable for retrofit or original equipment manufacturing of existing floor cleaning appliances.